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Into Thin Air
- A Personal Account of the Mt. Everest Disaster
- Narrated by: Jon Krakauer
- Length: 5 hrs and 58 mins
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Into the Wild
- Written by: Jon Krakauer
- Narrated by: Philip Franklin
- Length: 7 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
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In April 1992 a young man from a well-to-do family hitchhiked to Alaska and walked alone into the wilderness north of Mt. McKinley. His name was Christopher Johnson McCandless. He had given $25,000 in savings to charity, abandoned his car and most of his possessions, burned all the cash in his wallet, and invented a new life for himself.
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Dated reading
- By Marc on 2019-01-28
Written by: Jon Krakauer
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No Shortcuts to the Top
- Climbing the World's 14 Highest Peaks
- Written by: Ed Viesturs, David Roberts
- Narrated by: Stephen Hoye
- Length: 12 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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Story
For 18 years, Ed Viesturs pursued climbing's holy grail: to stand atop the world's 14 8,000-meter peaks, without the aid of bottled oxygen. But No Shortcuts to the Top is as much about the man who would become the first American to achieve that goal as it is about his stunning quest. As Viesturs recounts the stories of his most harrowing climbs, he reveals a man torn between the flat, safe world he and his loved ones share and the majestic and deadly places where only he can go.
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what a life
- By aero_costas on 2023-09-07
Written by: Ed Viesturs, and others
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K2
- Life and Death on the World's Most Dangerous Mountain
- Written by: Ed Viesturs, David Roberts
- Narrated by: Fred Sanders
- Length: 12 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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Story
At 28,251 feet, the world's second-tallest mountain, K2 thrusts skyward out of the Karakoram Range of northern Pakistan. Climbers regard it as the ultimate achievement in mountaineering, with good reason. Four times as deadly as Everest, K2 has claimed the lives of seventy-seven climbers since 1954. In August 2008 eleven climbers died in a single thirty-six-hour period on K2–the worst single-event tragedy in the mountain's history and the second-worst in the long chronicle of mountaineering in the Himalaya and Karakoram ranges.
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Humble Brags!
- By amirmhzadeh on 2023-06-12
Written by: Ed Viesturs, and others
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Left for Dead
- My Journey Home from Everest
- Written by: Beck Weathers, Stephen G. Michaud
- Narrated by: Roger Wayne
- Length: 7 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Story
In 1996, Beck Weathers and a climbing team pushed toward the summit of Mount Everest. Then a storm exploded on the mountain, ripping the team to shreds, forcing brave men to scratch and crawl for their lives. In this powerful memoir, Weathers describes not only his escape from hypothermia and the murderous storm that killed eight climbers but the journey of his life. This is the story of a man's route to a dangerous sport and a fateful expedition, as well as the road of recovery he has traveled since.
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Not what I expected/Lame and boring
- By Raven on 2023-02-13
Written by: Beck Weathers, and others
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Under the Banner of Heaven
- A Story of Violent Faith
- Written by: Jon Krakauer
- Narrated by: Jon Krakauer
- Length: 5 hrs and 24 mins
- Abridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
At the core of this book is an appalling double murder committed by two Mormon Fundamentalist brothers, Ron and Dan Lafferty, who insist they received a revelation from God commanding them to kill their blameless victims. Weaving the story of the Lafferty brothers and their fanatical brethren with a clear-eyed look at Mormonism's violent past, Krakauer examines the underbelly of the most successful homegrown faith in the United States, and finds a distinctly American brand of religious extremism.
Written by: Jon Krakauer
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Eiger Dreams
- Ventures Among Men and Mountains
- Written by: Jon Krakauer
- Narrated by: Philip Franklin
- Length: 8 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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No one writes about mountaineering and its attendant victories and hardships more brilliantly than Jon Krakauer. In this collection of his finest essays and reporting, Krakauer writes of mountains from the memorable perspective of one who has himself struggled with solo madness to scale Alaska's notorious Devils Thumb.
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Great collection of stories
- By Konrad J. Komuniecki on 2018-12-17
Written by: Jon Krakauer
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Into the Wild
- Written by: Jon Krakauer
- Narrated by: Philip Franklin
- Length: 7 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In April 1992 a young man from a well-to-do family hitchhiked to Alaska and walked alone into the wilderness north of Mt. McKinley. His name was Christopher Johnson McCandless. He had given $25,000 in savings to charity, abandoned his car and most of his possessions, burned all the cash in his wallet, and invented a new life for himself.
-
-
Dated reading
- By Marc on 2019-01-28
Written by: Jon Krakauer
-
No Shortcuts to the Top
- Climbing the World's 14 Highest Peaks
- Written by: Ed Viesturs, David Roberts
- Narrated by: Stephen Hoye
- Length: 12 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
For 18 years, Ed Viesturs pursued climbing's holy grail: to stand atop the world's 14 8,000-meter peaks, without the aid of bottled oxygen. But No Shortcuts to the Top is as much about the man who would become the first American to achieve that goal as it is about his stunning quest. As Viesturs recounts the stories of his most harrowing climbs, he reveals a man torn between the flat, safe world he and his loved ones share and the majestic and deadly places where only he can go.
-
-
what a life
- By aero_costas on 2023-09-07
Written by: Ed Viesturs, and others
-
K2
- Life and Death on the World's Most Dangerous Mountain
- Written by: Ed Viesturs, David Roberts
- Narrated by: Fred Sanders
- Length: 12 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
At 28,251 feet, the world's second-tallest mountain, K2 thrusts skyward out of the Karakoram Range of northern Pakistan. Climbers regard it as the ultimate achievement in mountaineering, with good reason. Four times as deadly as Everest, K2 has claimed the lives of seventy-seven climbers since 1954. In August 2008 eleven climbers died in a single thirty-six-hour period on K2–the worst single-event tragedy in the mountain's history and the second-worst in the long chronicle of mountaineering in the Himalaya and Karakoram ranges.
-
-
Humble Brags!
- By amirmhzadeh on 2023-06-12
Written by: Ed Viesturs, and others
-
Left for Dead
- My Journey Home from Everest
- Written by: Beck Weathers, Stephen G. Michaud
- Narrated by: Roger Wayne
- Length: 7 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 1996, Beck Weathers and a climbing team pushed toward the summit of Mount Everest. Then a storm exploded on the mountain, ripping the team to shreds, forcing brave men to scratch and crawl for their lives. In this powerful memoir, Weathers describes not only his escape from hypothermia and the murderous storm that killed eight climbers but the journey of his life. This is the story of a man's route to a dangerous sport and a fateful expedition, as well as the road of recovery he has traveled since.
-
-
Not what I expected/Lame and boring
- By Raven on 2023-02-13
Written by: Beck Weathers, and others
-
Under the Banner of Heaven
- A Story of Violent Faith
- Written by: Jon Krakauer
- Narrated by: Jon Krakauer
- Length: 5 hrs and 24 mins
- Abridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
At the core of this book is an appalling double murder committed by two Mormon Fundamentalist brothers, Ron and Dan Lafferty, who insist they received a revelation from God commanding them to kill their blameless victims. Weaving the story of the Lafferty brothers and their fanatical brethren with a clear-eyed look at Mormonism's violent past, Krakauer examines the underbelly of the most successful homegrown faith in the United States, and finds a distinctly American brand of religious extremism.
Written by: Jon Krakauer
-
Eiger Dreams
- Ventures Among Men and Mountains
- Written by: Jon Krakauer
- Narrated by: Philip Franklin
- Length: 8 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
No one writes about mountaineering and its attendant victories and hardships more brilliantly than Jon Krakauer. In this collection of his finest essays and reporting, Krakauer writes of mountains from the memorable perspective of one who has himself struggled with solo madness to scale Alaska's notorious Devils Thumb.
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Great collection of stories
- By Konrad J. Komuniecki on 2018-12-17
Written by: Jon Krakauer
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The Climb
- Written by: Anatoli Boukreev, G. Weston DeWalt
- Narrated by: Lloyd James
- Length: 9 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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The Climb is a true, gripping, and thought-provoking account of the worst disaster in the history of Mt. Everest: On May 10, 1996, two commercial expeditions headed by experienced leaders attempted to climb the highest mountain in the world, but things went terribly wrong...
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Falls short
- By J Burghardt on 2023-04-21
Written by: Anatoli Boukreev, and others
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Touching the Void
- Written by: Joe Simpson
- Narrated by: Andrew Wincott, Daniel Weyman
- Length: 6 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
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Joe Simpson, with just his partner, Simon Yates, tackled the unclimbed West Face of the remote 21,000-foot Siula Grande in the Peruvian Andes in June of 1995. But before they reached the summit, disaster struck. A few days later, Simon staggered into Base Camp, exhausted and frostbitten, to tell their non-climbing companion that Joe was dead. For three days he wrestled with guilt as they prepared to return home. Then a cry in the night took them out with torches, where they found Joe, badly injured.
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Amazing, wish I knew more.
- By Amazon Customer on 2018-07-24
Written by: Joe Simpson
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Classic Krakauer
- 'Mark Foo's Last Ride,' 'After the Fall,' and Other Essays from the Vault
- Written by: Jon Krakauer
- Narrated by: Scott Brick
- Length: 5 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
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Spanning an extraordinary range of subjects and locations, these ten gripping essays show why Jon Krakauer is considered a standard-bearer of modern journalism.
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Super boring and repetitive
- By Dawn on 2023-01-04
Written by: Jon Krakauer
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Buried in the Sky
- The Extraordinary Story of the Sherpa Climbers on K2's Deadliest Day
- Written by: Peter Zuckerman, Amanda Padoan
- Narrated by: David Doersch
- Length: 7 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
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When Edmund Hillary first conquered Mt. Everest, Sherpa Tenzing Norgay was at his side. Indeed, for as long as Westerners have been climbing the Himalaya, Sherpas have been the unsung heroes in the background. In August 2008, when eleven climbers lost their lives on K2, the world’s most dangerous peak, two Sherpas survived. They had emerged from poverty and political turmoil to become two of the most skillful mountaineers on earth. Based on unprecedented access and interviews, Buried in the Sky reveals their astonishing story for the first time.
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Good story, narrator needs work
- By Guillaume Knowlden on 2019-09-17
Written by: Peter Zuckerman, and others
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Beyond Possible
- The man and the mindset that summitted K2 in winter
- Written by: Nimsdai Purja
- Narrated by: Elliot Fitzpatrick
- Length: 8 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
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An SBS Gurkha soldier's account of how his tough Nepali upbringing and the lessons learned in his army life enabled his record-breaking conquest of all 14 of the world's 8,000m peaks in under seven months. What happens when ambition meets limitless imagination? Enter Project Possible: a seemingly unreachable goal to climb all 14 'death zone' mountains in record time. The previous record was seven years, 10 months and six days. I did it in six months.
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Amazing story of Survival
- By Tony on 2023-04-09
Written by: Nimsdai Purja
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The Climb
- Tragic Ambitions on Everest
- Written by: Anatoli Boukreev
- Narrated by: Richard Davidson
- Length: 10 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
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Anatoli Boukreev’s first-hand account of the worst human disaster in the history of Mt. Everest will hold listeners spellbound. A top-rated guide and high altitude climber, Boukreev dictated the raw and powerful details of this ill-fated trek from memories and notes recorded just five days after the catastrophe. In May of 1996, 33 people went up the mountain, but only 28 returned. As two commercial expeditions climbed the world’s highest peak, poor planning, miscommunication, and an unpredictable blizzard conspired to defeat them.
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very interesting
- By eezhova on 2020-08-04
Written by: Anatoli Boukreev
Publisher's Summary
When Jon Krakauer reached the summit of Mt. Everest in the early afternoon of May 10, 1996, he hadn't slept in 57 hours and was reeling from the brain-altering effects of oxygen depletion. As he turned to begin his long, dangerous descent from 29,028 feet, 20 other climbers were still pushing doggedly toward the top. No one had noticed that the sky had begun to fill with clouds. Six hours later and 3,000 feet lower, in 70-knot winds and blinding snow, Krakauer collapsed in his tent, freezing, hallucinating from exhaustion and hypoxia, but safe. The following morning, he learned that six of his fellow climbers hadn't made it back to their camp and were desperately struggling for their lives. When the storm finally passed, five of them would be dead, and the sixth so horribly frostbitten that his right hand would have to be amputated.
Into Thin Air is the definitive account of the deadliest season in the history of Everest by the acclaimed journalist and author of the best seller Into the Wild. On assignment for Outside magazine to report on the growing commercialization of the mountain, Krakauer, an accomplished climber, went to the Himalayas as a client of Rob Hall, the most respected high-altitude guide in the world. A rangy, 35-year-old New Zealander, Hall had summited Everest four times between 1990 and 1995 and had led 39 climbers to the top. Ascending the mountain in close proximity to Hall's team was a guided expedition led by Scott Fischer, a 40-year-old American with legendary strength and drive who had climbed the peak without supplemental oxygen in 1994. But neither Hall nor Fischer survived the rogue storm that struck in May 1996.
Krakauer examines what it is about Everest that has compelled so many people - including himself - to throw caution to the wind, ignore the concerns of loved ones, and willingly subject themselves to such risk, hardship, and expense. Written with emotional clarity and supported by his unimpeachable reporting, Krakauer's eyewitness account of what happened on the roof of the world is a singular achievement.
What the critics say
- Publishers Weekly Listen Up Award Winner, Best Audio of 1998, Best of the Best
Alex Award Winner, 1998
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What listeners say about Into Thin Air
Average Customer RatingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Pamela Rogoza-Hayward
- 2021-03-15
Great Narration
I really enjoyed listening to Jon's first hand account of this experience. A really interesting story.
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1 person found this helpful
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- JW
- 2019-06-15
Well written
Makes you feel that you've been there with him. Must have been a terrifying and traumatic experience. Hope everyone involved can find healing.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Bill Turnbull
- 2023-09-10
Riveting
Great narration and account of a devastating climbing tragedy on Everest. My heart goes out to everyone involved.
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- R. Molloy
- 2022-04-12
Fantastic
I’ve watched multiple documentaries but nothing compares to this. I really like that it was John reading his own words, it makes it very special
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- Paul Greensmith
- 2021-10-30
extremely sad, and a difficult listen
such a terrible tragedy and the narrator really brings out how sad the whole situation is. I found my eyes watery a couple times. Worth purchasing but keep in mind that this was an absolutely terrible tragedy and it is really sad.
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- Amazon Customer
- 2019-04-23
Excellent account and read powerfully by author
a harrowing tale of catastrophe on Everest. always a pleasure to hear books read by their authors-- this is certainly the case in this book.
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- Alyssa
- 2020-01-31
ABRIDGED VERSION
I really enjoyed this story and I am a fan of Jon Krakauer. However, I was really disappointed that when I reached the end of the audiobook, then and only then was it announced "Thank you for listening to this abridged version of In Thin Air." It doesn't tell you that at the beginning of the book. Although it says it on the book's description page, you wouldn't see that if, like me, you just added the book to your cart from the search page. I assumed it was the original writing since I saw it was narrated by Krakauer himself and so I figured it was the full audiobook... I think if they are going to have very different versions of this book, they should disclose that when people order the book without going into all the details.
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29 people found this helpful
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Overall

- Mike
- 2006-05-12
into thin air
In the 4 years I have been enjoying audible books, I have never felt compelled to write a review until now. This is the most amazing story. Krakauer is modest but obviously heroic. He seems to truly regret his faults in the events while not overplaying his courage and stamina in saving several lives. Usually authors' narrations are not as good as the pros, but he does a great job. You can feel the emotion. For me it was like reading LOTR for the first time.
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12 people found this helpful
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- Zina
- 2015-03-23
Awesome!
This being my first audio book, I'm impress of how well the author captured his experience. I was moved by his narration and felt as if I was on the journey along side them. Great book so worth listening!
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10 people found this helpful
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- Chris Huff
- 2018-03-04
Favorite book!
I don’t climb mountains, I don’t want to climb mountains, but I love this book!
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7 people found this helpful
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- Jack
- 2019-03-03
MUST READ
Absolutely. 100%. Amazing!
I listened to it twice and then when on a binge of YouTube videos of mountaineering talks because I really couldn't think about anything else for months after finishing.
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4 people found this helpful
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- Laura Powell
- 2018-01-04
Real
The narrator was excellent and frank
My heart goes out to the author. I'm glad he wrote this.
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4 people found this helpful
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- M. Thompson
- 2016-08-26
if you are fascinated by mountaineering, this is
you couldn't pay me to climb Everest or K2, but I am completely fascinated with reading about them.
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4 people found this helpful
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- Katrina McClary
- 2017-01-25
spectacular
written like a storm rolling in .. (spoiler alert). i actually could't put it down
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3 people found this helpful
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- monica wolfson
- 2016-04-02
Fantastic very honest
Gripping - must listen to - sad tale of all going wrong. Moving . Loved it. Highly recommended and loved Jon's reading of his own story.
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3 people found this helpful
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- G. Forde
- 2010-11-14
better than expected
I was a little late to the party on this book. It is great, very gripping start to finish, the pace reminded me of The Perfect Storm. I read John's book on Pat Tillman and it was great as well.
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3 people found this helpful